


Some (Goddamned) Faith

by manic_intent



Category: Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead Redemption 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas prompts, First Time, M/M, Pre-Canon, That AU where Arthur goes with John on his sabbatical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 02:33:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17092397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “You didn’t have to follow me,” John said, after half a day of Arthur saying not a goddamned word.





	Some (Goddamned) Faith

**Author's Note:**

> for saltyhedgeh0g: John x Arthur, soft cowboys, domestic fluff, 1/3 of my Christmas season prompts.

“You didn’t have to follow me,” John said, after half a day of Arthur saying not a goddamned word. 

Arthur glanced at him silently. They were hours out of sight of the camp, the sun climbing higher in the sky over vast plains dotted with the occasional determined tree. A small herd of deer watched them at a cautious distance for a while. Soon their nerve broke and they went springing over the grass, white tails pricked high, the only noise but for their horses and the wind for miles. John hadn’t really expected Arthur to speak. Arthur wasn’t the garrulous sort in the first place, and if he got mad, really mad, he tended to get quiet rather than loud. Thoughtful instead of explosive. John liked that fine in a man. Or used to.

“It’s a free country,” Arthur said, his rumbling drawl nearly startling John out of his saddle. John liked Arthur’s voice fine too. It was deep, and as richly made as its owner. Arthur had to be coming close to his thirties now, and over the years it’d felt like he’d only gotten bigger. Arthur’s big black Turkoman horse, Boadicea, looked normal-sized next to him. 

“Dutch didn’t mind?” John asked. Having just cleared eighteen by a week, John was still rolling into his own growth spurt. His voice had broken into an ugly hoarse rasp, his body going lean and coltish instead of sleek like Dutch or big like Arthur. John couldn’t ever do nothing proper, it seemed. Not even growing up. 

“Why should he?” Arthur asked, as though Arthur leaving camp had been the same as John leaving. John, who could handle a gun but nothing else, whose fuck-ups were always told up for laughs around the camp. John, who unlike Arthur, had never been groomed by Dutch and Hosea for greater things. 

“You’re like a son to him,” John said, still bewildered.

“So’re you.” 

“Me? Hell no. You guys picked me off the street when I was a kid and brought me up, but Dutch and Hosea? They ain’t ever gonna think that fondly of me.”

Arthur let out a loud snort. “You sure you ain’t been kicked before by a horse in the head? You’re a goddamned idiot sometimes, Marston.” 

“Sure am. So why’d you ride out with me?”

“I reckon you’d get yourself shot quickly if I didn’t,” Arthur said. 

John scowled at Arthur. “I don’t need a goddamned minder.” 

“Sure you don’t,” Arthur said, with an utter lack of sincerity. 

“That’s what Dutch thinks? That I’m likely to get myself shot or… or get tired of being on my own and go back to the gang? That’s why you’re here?” 

“Reckon there’s a good chance of that, yeah,” Arthur said, “seeing as you ain’t ever been out on your own before.” 

No wonder Dutch hadn’t said a word when Arthur had saddled up. John forced his gaze over to the horizon, his hand knotting over the reins. “I’ve been on my own before. Before the gang scooped me up. If I could survive alone when I was a kid I can survive now.” 

“Ain’t about surviving, boy,” Arthur said. That word, _boy_. John had gotten real tired of hearing it. Especially from Arthur. “You know how to survive, sure. You’re a great shot, you know how to live off the land. Fact is, there’s more to life than surviving, and I—we—taught you better than that.” 

Arthur lapsed back into silence, leaving John to mull over the slip. If that was what it was. They took a break under a big oak, sharing coffee, tinned peaches, and some jerky for lunch. Wasn’t much but John wasn’t that hungry. Since deciding to leave camp, John had been fired through with nervous energy. Regretting and not quite regretting. He’d just known he had to go, even though he didn’t want to. Having Arthur come along was annoying, sure, but a big part of John was glad that he did. 

“Thought you’d be mad,” John said, as Arthur gave him the peaches to polish off. 

“What for? I’ve run off plenty. When I was your age. One time I lived out nowhere for a week, all ‘cos I was pissed over something or other. Don’t even remember what it was.” Arthur yawned. He was sprawled with delicious ease against the trunk of the oak, long legs spread out over the roots and the earth. Arthur’s hat was tipped down over his handsome, stubble-darkened face, blue shirt rolled up over powerful arms. John looked away. 

“Anyone ride out after you all those times?”

“Nah. What for? Dutch and Hosea knew I’d be back. Hosea said, when he was your age, he once spent a couple’a months living rough on a mountain. Tracking some giant bear or some sort. Nearly got himself killed.” 

“Hosea would do that.” Hosea had a deep love of hunting and fishing, of the wild places in the world. If he’d never fallen in with Dutch, John would’ve put good money on Hosea maybe living the rest of his life in a patch of forest somewhere, eking it out as a trapper, perfectly happy. “You really didn’t have to follow me.” 

“Yeah, you’ve said.” Arthur started to roll himself a cigarette. He offered John a stick, but John shook his head as he slowly finished the tin of peaches. This wasn’t so bad and yet at the same time, it was kind of a disaster. Wanting to avoid Arthur was the main reason why John had decided to leave, after all. He’d wanted some distance between them to think about things. Now there was no distance, and just as things always were whenever John was this close to Arthur, there was no thinking of anything _but_ Arthur. 

“And I’ll say it again,” John said, irritated. “I’m ready.” 

Arthur let out a snort. “Right you are, boy. Well, you tell me something. Did you have a plan? Where was you going?” 

“Did you have a plan whenever you rode off by yourself?” 

“‘Course. I ain’t much into starving to death or dying of thirst. Each time I left I had a plan. Even the times I left because I was hopping mad over something or other and wanted to stay out longer, I knew where to go.” 

“Good for you,” John said, then wished he didn’t sound so bitter. Sounding bitter was childish, and John had wanted Arthur to stop seeing him as a child for years. 

“So you don’t got a plan,” Arthur said. He lit up and took a long drag of his cigarette. “Figured.” 

“I do have a plan,” John lied belligerently. 

“Yeah? Let’s hear it.”

“I was…” John groped around the scattering attic of his brain for something that didn’t sound like he was the idiot everyone in the gang said he was. That’d make him sound older than his years. “I was gonna ride out to Contention. To get a real goddamned drink.” Bill had said something of that sort to Dutch one night. Arthur had been on scout duty, so he probably wouldn’t have heard. 

Arthur laughed. He had a handsome laugh, too, deep and gruff and weirdly infectious. When they were younger and prone to roughhousing like kids, sometimes if they were wrestling in the dirt Arthur would stop his play-fighting and laugh that gorgeous laugh, shaking it out against John. John would laugh too, joyous. He’d loved Arthur long before he’d been _in_ love with Arthur, for mostly the same reasons. “We bringing up two boys or a pair of coyotes?” Dutch would ask Hosea, grinning and oblivious, and Hosea would shake his head and say, “Boys will be boys.” 

Boys will be boys. John had been sorry when Arthur had grown out of all that. Grown out of being one of the boys, into being called ‘son’ instead by Dutch and Hosea. Respect of that sort wasn’t in John’s future in the gang, he could see that. He had nobody to blame for that but himself. 

“Okay, John,” Arthur said, and all hope that John had of Arthur taking him seriously faded quick at the sound of the amusement strung bright in Arthur’s face. “We’ll go to Contention and get you a ‘real goddamned drink’.”

#

John had tried alcohol before, as much as Hosea had made some noise over him maybe being too young to try it. “Nonsense,” Dutch had said, as he’d poured John a glass of whisky. His first, years back. “It’d put hairs on his chest.” Arthur had smiled. “Would it put a brain in his head?” Bill had said, and in the face of Bill’s ugly sneer and Arthur’s grin John had tipped back the glass the way he’d seen everyone else do it.

Lord, it’d burned all the way down. When he coughed and sputtered and gone red all over, John remembered one thing that’d made that whole embarrassing fucking ordeal worthwhile. Everyone had laughed but Arthur. Arthur had just fetched him some water and patted him on the back, and in that moment John had known that he would love Arthur forever. 

Contention was a pretty big town for this neck of the frontier, a railway town well-used by ranchers. Meant the town had a decent hotel and a scattering of shops that lined out more than just one road. It had a big saloon. A bear of a man with muttonchops towered over the bar, polishing glasses. Over in the corner was a piano, seldom-used. At this time of day coming into night, the saloon was thick with hard-drinking men who clustered together at their tables. Everyone burned brown by the sun, everyone stinking of horses and cattle and liquor. Most of them ignored John and Arthur as they made for the bar, but them who didn’t made John hang his hands loosely by his holsters.

“Relax,” Arthur muttered. “You’re as tense as a virgin on her wedding night.” He chuckled as John flushed, and hauled him over to the bar. “Jimmy,” Arthur said. 

The bartender stared down at Arthur from the hand’s breadth he had on him for height. “Morgan. Didn’t hear of you boys being in town. Dutch around?” 

“Naw, it’s just me and my friend John here.” Arthur clapped John on the shoulder as John settled on a bar stool. “He reckons he’s old enough to drink now, so I’m buying him a drink.” 

Jimmy stared John over, probably taking in his skinny arms in the shirt he was outgrowing, the downy fuzz over his jaw that he had instead of a beard. “Old enough to drink what? Milk?” 

John bristled, but before he could speak Arthur said, “C’mon, Jimmy. He’s old enough. Be nice. You don’t wanna turn the boy into a teetotaller, do you?” 

“Lord forbid,” Jimmy said. He shucked out a couple of clean glasses and poured them both a few fingers of whisky, then shuffled off to handle another customer. 

John caught Arthur watching him as he picked up the glass. “What?”

“This time maybe don’t just drink it all at once,” Arthur said.

“I ain’t that stupid,” John said, annoyed. 

Arthur sniffed. “Dutch pulled the same thing on me when I was a kid. Once he stopped laughing he said he hoped that he’d taught me a valuable lifelong lesson.”

“That he can be a real bastard?” 

Arthur took a sip of his glass instead of snapping at John, which was a surprise. Or maybe not. Arthur was a hardass about discipline when he was on the job. Other times, he could be almost as patient as Hosea. “There is that. Naw, he was trying to teach me a lesson about the bottle. About hard drinking. Said he’d seen good men drink themselves to death, and while a drink now and then was fine, he hoped I’d know never to let it lay me low.” 

Dutch had said nothing of the sort to John. There’d been no lesson there. Not one that was kind. “I see,” John said, and managed not to sound bitter. He liked Dutch fine, maybe loved Hosea, but he didn’t look up to either of them as a long-lost father. John had a father, one he still remembered. Blind as he was, poor as they were, John’s father had tried while he was alive. Arthur hadn’t said much about his real father, but the way he looked up to Dutch and Hosea told John that early childhood was something Arthur preferred to forget. 

They had another drink, then a third. John lost count at some point. He remembered stumbling into people, singing. Arthur’s gorgeous laughter. Pissing against the side of the building while telling the world how weird human dicks were, like fleshy pink sausages stuck low on a person over a wrinkly meatball or two. Stumbling down the street slung against Arthur, nuzzling against Arthur’s throat while Arthur chuckled huskily in a way that made John feel like he was tingling all over, like there was a restlessness shot under his skin. It felt great. Running away had been the best idea ever.

#

John woke up feeling poorly, to say the least. Nausea stirred as he managed to sit up with a groan, rubbing a hand slowly over his face and blinking. He was in a hotel room, by the look of it, one with two beds. Arthur was slouched into the other bed, scribbling in his notebook. “Morning, Marston,” Arthur said, without looking up. “Take a bath. It’ll make you feel less like hell.”

“Morning to you too,” John said, and slunk out of the room. The awful headache he was nursing faded some as he took a slow and thorough bath, scrubbing off trail dust and worse. By the time he was done even his nausea had gone down. John sat back in the tub, taking himself in hand and giving his cock a few lazy tugs. Thought of Arthur being so close by, few doors away. Sprawled in the other bed with his powerful thighs spread wide. Chuckling against John’s ear, pressed close. Lust pulsed through him in a gritty rush that made John bite down on a gasp. 

John had seen Arthur kiss before. The women in the camp were free with their affections, even though—or maybe because—Dutch had made it plain that any kinda ‘goings on’ in camp had to have both parties willing _and_ enthusiastic to boot. The newest girl, Abigail, was pretty and smart and sharp-tongued, which looked to be what Arthur liked in a woman. She took Dutch to bed first, sure. Days after that she’d kissed Arthur in camp, right by the cook fire while Jenny and the Callahans had hollered and whistled and laughed, until Mrs Grimshaw had swatted them both for breaking one of her Rules. “No hanky-panky in the common area!” Mrs Grimshaw had yelled, as Arthur and Abigail beat a hasty retreat. 

Arthur kissed the same way he did anything. Competent, thorough. He’d given Abigail a pretty flush on her cheeks when he’d let her up with a playful flourish and not even Mrs Grimshaw’s wrath had chased away her obvious pleasure. John had envied her then in a way he hadn’t thought possible. Envy had gnawed its way down into his bones, seeped into his blood like acid. He’d breathed its bitterness for days and days until he’d felt like he couldn’t breathe nothing else. John had thought a clean break would clear his head but here he was, still nowhere far from Arthur. 

Tickling his fingers down to his balls, John breathed slowly as he fondled them, tucking his fingers between them, cupping them in his gun-roughened palms. Thought of a bigger hand stroking him, curled around his cock and balls. Easing fingers inside him. The water was nowhere enough slick and the stretched burned a little until John’s body eased enough to take a couple of fingers. Arthur’s fingers would be bigger. Better.

Just as the burn was easing into a pleasant fullness there was a sharp rap on the door. “John?” Arthur growled. “You asleep or what?”

John nearly swallowed his tongue. “Shit! Uh. Yeah. Sorry.”

“Hell, boy, don’t apologise to me, apologise to all the people you’re holding up in this fine establishment.” Arthur sounded amused all over again. He was talking to someone outside the door. “Sorry about my friend. He had a bit too much to drink the other night.” 

Cheeks flaming, John dried off and dressed up. Arthur and whoever it was were nowhere to be seen outside, and John eased guiltily into their room, ready with an excuse. Arthur was already buckling on his belt. “Feeling better?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah. Sorry.” 

“For what?” Arthur turned around, still so goddamned amused. “Now what?”

“Now?”

“All that whisky and moonshine rot your brain out too? You’ve had your drink. Now what?” 

“Breakfast,” John said without thinking. Arthur chuckled. Made a show of waving John down the stairs. The hotel did a decent fry up. Nowhere as decent as Pearson’s, even with meat this fresh. John ate slowly, trying to think. 

Arthur waited until they were washing breakfast down with coffee before giving John another pointed look. Thankfully, a quick look beyond the hotel windows had given John an idea. “I’m gonna look up some bounties,” John said. 

“Yeah?” Arthur’s eyes crinkled at the edges with amusement. “You done that before?” 

“Just need to read the instructions and bring them in dead or bring them in alive, yeah?” 

“It’s a whole wide world out there,” Arthur said, with a nod at the door. “How’re you gonna find some desperate outlaw in the frontier?” 

“I don’t know, Arthur,” John said, biting down on his irritation. “Could be I’ve had some experience walking in their shoes.” 

Arthur raised his palms in mock surrender. “Okay, John. Okay. Calm down.” 

“Shouldn’t you be heading back?” 

“I’m not in a hurry,” Arthur said and smirked at him when he scowled. He sat on Boadicea afterward and smoked as John marched across the street to the board outside the Sheriff’s. As John started picking up posters, someone cleared their throat beside him.

“Ain’t you too young to be a bounty hunter?” 

John looked up with a glare. It was the sheriff, a bewhiskered old man with an impressive paunch. “Ain’t no age limit to being a bounty hunter, is there? I can handle myself.” 

“Ain’t any kinda life for the young,” the sheriff said, undeterred. “Now, how about being a rancher? Them Owens up north, they’re kind folk who pay well. They’d take you in, no problem.”

“Said I can handle myself,” John said, with a growl. 

“Sure, son,” the sheriff said, raising his eyebrows, “just so you know, them Wilson Brothers whose posters you picked up, I’ve already buried three bounty hunters who went after them. It’s a damned depressing business and—”

“There a problem, Sheriff?” Arthur had dismounted and wandered over. He smiled pleasantly. 

The sheriff looked between them. “Not that I’m thinking so, not yet.” 

“Well sir, if there ain’t, my brother and I got to get going,” Arthur said, tipping his hat. 

To John’s deepening irritation, the sheriff actually relaxed. “Oh, he’s your brother? Yeah, I see now. Saw you two leave the hotel, should’ve put two and two together. Ain’t he a bit young to be going into the business? Pardon me for saying so, sir, but what would your mother think?”

“She ain’t been around for a while, rest her soul,” Arthur said, “and our father’s off doing his own thing. Don’t you worry, sheriff. Picking up posters is about as dangerous as I like it to get with this kid.” He reached over to ruffle John’s hair and smirked as John ducked free and glared. “You know how kids are. Want to be grown up so fast they’d hurt themselves trying if you don’t keep an eye on them.” Arthur’s amusement didn’t go further than the curl of his mouth. 

“That they are, that they are. Good luck with those. The Wilson Brothers, they like to haunt the old quarry to the northwest. Coleman’s Dipper. Heard they’re gathering a gang of their own, so be careful out there, sir.” The sheriff shook Arthur’s hand and patted John affably on the shoulder. 

John tried not to sulk on their way out of town, because that kinda thing only tended to make Arthur laugh. “Heard of the Wilson Brothers,” Arthur said, unfolding the poster. “They do stage coaches, mostly. Something must’ve gone wrong for them to rack up this kinda bounty.”

“You gonna make me put half of that into camp funds?” 

Arthur frowned at him. “Them’s the rules,” Arthur said. 

“I _left_. I ain’t going back. Now you either get that through that goddamned thick head of yours or you turn back now and let me go on by myself.” 

That leached out the last of Arthur’s amusement. “The hell is wrong with you?” 

“The hell is wrong with _you_? What part of ‘I’m leaving the gang’ didn’t you understand?” John snapped. 

“What, forever?”

“Obviously forever!” 

Arthur stared at him for a while, smoking. Didn’t say a word until he finished his cigarette and flicked it onto the dirt. “Hell, and I think you’re stubborn and stupid enough to mean it.”

“I mean it,” John said, biting out each word with an angry relish. 

“What exactly was the problem? The jokes? Look, boy. You really did fuck up on the Richmond job. And the Everton thing. And over in McDonald. You’re young. Dutch and Hosea and the others, we knows that. Some of it was bad luck, the rest I think—or hope—you’d grow out of. It won’t be bad forever.” 

“Wasn’t the jokes. I deserved those,” John said, because he might be angry and ill-mannered and ignorant, but he was aware of all that. 

“What then?” 

“I just got tired. Wanted to try things on my own for a while,” John said. He’d never been good at lying though. Not to Arthur. Arthur studied him, folding up the poster, then he let out a laugh.

“Abigail.” 

John flinched. “What?”

“Well, look at you.” Arthur’s amusement was back. “Goddamned Abigail? You leaving the camp because of a two dollar whore?”

“She’s far more than just that, and since when did you ever begrudge anyone their way of living?” Abigail had flirted with John but had dropped it quick when she’d seen he wasn’t interested. They’d talked instead, and she’d taught him a few card cheats that he hadn’t yet learned. John had taught her the few he’d come up with in turn. Abigail was a survivor, and John wished she had kinder means of surviving. She wasn’t hard like Jenny and the others. 

“Jesus, don’t get into another snit. I don’t mean that with any sort of disrespect,” Arthur drawled, “it’s just what she does. Turn tricks for money, cut your purse too if you ain’t looking. She’s good at both.” 

“Why are we talking about Abigail?” 

“Seems to me you’ve been in a mood since she invited herself into the gang. Maybe I get it. She’s pretty and she’s hella smarter than you are, not that _that’s_ hard. Why didn’t you talk her into coming along?” 

“And doing what?” John asked, bewildered now. 

Arthur shrugged. He looked away. “Guess you two could get married. If that’s what the two of you want. Go settle somewhere as a rancher. If you needed money I could’ve given you some. Dutch and Hosea, too.” 

“You’re the one who slept with her,” John said, completely mystified. 

“That’s why you upped and left? Come on. _Dutch_ slept with her. So did Bill. And the Callahans. None of us meant nothing by that and we all know the rules.” 

“I just… look… no. Abigail. Ain’t the reason I left,” John said, very slowly. “Okay? I like her, same as I like Jenny, and Tilly, hell, even Mrs Grimshaw, and everyone in camp except Bill, who’s a miserable bastard. I just. Got tired.” 

“Don’t lie to me, John. I saw you that day. When Abigail and I broke Mrs Grimshaw’s Rule against Goings-On in the Common Area.” Arthur smiled lazily at John. “You looked like you bit into a lemon.” 

Arthur was dangerously close to the truth now, close enough that John’s heart stuttered against his ribs and his hands were sweating into the reins. And yet. Hell, if Dutch and Hosea had taught John anything it was that turning his back and running scared would only make whatever it was worse. Better to punch back. Punch first, if he could. 

“You think you’re so fucking smart, Morgan,” John said, with all the bitterness and self-disgust and resentment that he’d built and built inside him since he’d learned what envy felt like. “But you don’t get it at all. You want to run this bounty with me? Fine. Just. Shut up, all right? Do me a favour. Fucking _shut up_.”

Arthur blinked at him and fell silent.

#

The Wilson Brothers and their gang put up a hell of a fight for a bunch of half-starved stagecoach robbers holed up in a dank old mine, a fight that ended with Arthur shot in a couple of places. Nothing too serious, thankfully. John was contrite as they hauled the Wilsons back to Contention, not even annoyed as the sheriff paid Arthur out and had a quiet word with him as John dumped the bounties in a cell.

Riding out, John said, “You sure you don’t want to rest at the hotel?” 

“Now you want me to talk?” Arthur glanced at him. 

“You did your share of talking over at the quarry.” Arthur liked to take the lead, which usually meant obeying him as he yelled at John from cover. John was fine with that. Arthur would never ask anyone to do something that he couldn’t do himself. 

“That was different.” Arthur had been gashed high on his left arm and a bad ricochet had caught him in a thigh. He smelled of gunpowder and blood, even from the arm’s breadth of distance between them. 

Arthur grunted. “Sheriff said there was an old cabin a bit of a ride out north. Used to belong to one of the bounty hunters who died to them Wilson Brothers. Said we were welcome to its use since we’d avenged its owner.” 

“Sounds good,” John said. 

Arthur frowned at him. “You all right?”

“I ain’t the one shot in two places.” 

“What, this? You’ve seen me laid out worse.” 

“This is… kinda different,” John said. Before, whenever Arthur got hurt it was on gang business. Even if John fucking up had been part of the reason it had never felt this upsetting, somehow. John had always trusted the Reverend to take care of it back in camp. Dutch and Hosea would see it all right. “Maybe we should’ve snuck up on them like I said.” 

“Hate having to sneak up on anything,” Arthur said, because while he was light enough on his feet he was still a big man. He patted his pump shotgun in the saddle holster. “Not when we don’t rightly have to.” 

The dead bounty hunter’s cabin was dusty but still in decent condition. No squatters neither—it was hidden well in the shadow of a cliff, cut against a stream. Someone, maybe the sheriff, had bothered to bury the cabin’s previous owner beside the cabin and leave a small wooden cross carved with a name. Arthur inspected it after they hitched up their horses. “Sleep kindly, Mister North,” he told the dead. “We’d be borrowing your cabin for a bit.”

“You believe in ghosts?” John asked, as he picked the lock and let them in. 

“I believe in courtesy,” Arthur said, flashing John one of his handsome grins. John was glad that the dusty gloom hid his flush as he made a show of going through the kitchen drawers, only to freeze up as Arthur bracketed him against them, big hands pressed to either side of John’s hips.

“…What?” John said, trying not to breathe. 

Arthur studied him carefully. He smirked and took a step back, hooking an arm around John’s waist and pulling him close, then flush when John merely let out a soft gasp. Arthur was warm. Solid and immutable. He looked John over for a heartbeat more and bent John into a kiss with a familiar playful flourish. Arthur pushed his tongue into John’s mouth, licked past his teeth. Kissed him breathless and hummed as John clutched nervously at Arthur’s shoulders. The world was tumbling out of balance, right into a surreal fantasy. John didn’t dare to move. He’d break it, the way he broke everything. He was clumsy with life that way, with everything he knew to treasure. 

With a final playful lick against John’s mouth, Arthur straightened up. A pained grimace briefly crossed his face as the gesture pushed weight onto his injured leg, then Arthur was smirking at him. “Now you’re even with Abigail.”

“W-what?” 

Arthur’s good arm was still curled around John’s waist. “That day in the hotel. You in the bath. I was heading down for breakfast when I thought I heard you calling my name.”

John had…? He bit down on the inside of his cheek, ready to die of embarrassment. “Uh.”

“Thought maybe you’d gone to sleep and was having a nightmare or something. When you was younger you’d do that. Have a bad dream, call out for Hosea or Dutch. Sometimes me.” Arthur stared at him soberly. “Guess I should’ve figured right then, but I seriously thought you liked Abigail.” 

“I do. I just. Not in the way you think. I.” John gave up trying to explain. He leaned up nervously instead. Kissed Arthur when Arthur didn’t pull away. He was pretty sure he was fumbling it, more nervous enthusiasm than Arthur’s gorgeous surety. 

Arthur kissed him back, stroking his spine, the curve of his ass. _Arthur_. John really didn’t get it. Why would someone like Arthur do something like this? With _John_? He’d seen rich, well-bred pretty women blush and flirt with Arthur in towns, their pale fingers lingering on his sleeve. Arthur wasn’t as good a flirt as Hosea but he had the looks to back him up and hell, John was nothing like that. He was just an angry kid who was good at ugly things. 

“You done this before?” John asked, unsure. “With a man?” 

“Yeah,” Arthur said, with a light shrug. “Why not? Ain’t like we aren’t already wanted in a couple of states for a number of hanging offenses.” 

Put that way, John wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Arthur leaned over. He kissed John as John startled to fumble with the buttons on Arthur’s shirt. They kissed as they peeled off their clothes, pulled off boots, unbuckled holsters and belts. Hats were tossed off over the heap as Arthur pulled John onto his hands and knees on the bed. John sucked in a thin breath as he got a good look at Arthur’s fat cock, standing proud in a thick bar against his thigh. It was far thicker than John’s fingers. 

Arthur noticed. “Don’t you worry,” he said, as he knelt on the bed behind John. “We won’t do that just yet.” He spat on his hand and stroked John’s cock before John could ask a question, tightening his fingers into a fist for John to fuck into. Arthur bit stinging little kisses over John’s shoulders as John gasped and bucked, hands clenched into the sheets as he snapped his hips into the pressure. Behind him, Arthur spat again on something. “John, your knees. Press ‘em together. Yeah, like that. Hold it like that.” 

“Why—” John gasped as Arthur pressed his slick cock between John’s thighs, nudging up against his balls. Arthur groaned, his pleasure rumbling against John’s skin as he pressed down over John’s back. Bracketing him down and shaking the impression of his lust against John’s skin. John arched, with a low whine. He’d take that. Take anything Arthur cared to give him. Arthur chuckled and nipped John against the back of his throat. The first thrust shoved John hard against Arthur’s fist. 

It took John a few false starts to figure out how to move against Arthur’s rhythm. He shivered as Arthur whispered praise into his ear, a constant filthy stream. “You’re actually good at this, Marston,” Arthur said, his breath hot against John’s ear. “Think I’d show you how to get properly cleaned up after this. How to work yourself open so you can fit me inside you.” He thrust against John’s thighs, the gritty friction making John yelp and buck. 

He wanted more. “Please,” John whispered. “God, Arthur.”

“We haven’t even gotten started,” Arthur said, with a low laugh. He bit John harder against the nape of his neck, working in his teeth as John whined. “For once you ain’t talking back to me.” Arthur kissed the stinging mark he’d made on John’s skin. “I’d show you more. How to please me with your hands. Your mouth.” 

“Arthur. _Arthur_.” John begged Arthur for more yet, with every moan, every urgent roll of his hips. The strange tingling restlessness he’d felt falling down drunk against Arthur in Contention was back with a vengeance, an urgent burn that felt like lust was singing itself out of John’s skin, like he’d never be able to get enough of Arthur. 

Hell. John had known that to be true for a while. Even before he’d seen Arthur kiss Abigail. 

“John,” Arthur said against the back of his neck, biting off his name like he was hungry for more, too. More of _John_. “Jesus fuck.” John let out a hoarse laugh, pushing his thighs tighter together. Arthur shuddered and groaned. He went stiff against John’s back, painting hot wet spurts of come against John’s skin, over the bed. He bit John hard on the back of his throat, breathing harshly. Then he laughed, low and wolfish as he drew back and turned John roughly onto his back. 

“Look at that,” Arthur said softly. He drew whorls with his fingers through the mess on John’s thighs and smiled. 

“Please,” John whined, all too aware that he was whining. He ached with the need for more, strung tight on not quite enough. “Please.” 

“Sit up there,” Arthur said, nudging John until he scrambled up against the wall and the frame of the cot. 

Arthur bent, licking a swipe through the mess and over John’s cock. John yelped, twitching up against Arthur. Arthur shot him an annoyed look and held him down, licking him again. Taking his time until John was biting down sobs for air, heels twitching against the dusty mattress. When Arthur finally swallowed John down, John wailed and started to pulse into the tight heat. Release felt shattering. He slumped limply against the wall, breathing hard as Arthur spat on the ground and started to laugh hoarsely. Before John could apologise, say anything at all, Arthur leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. John swallowed the words. He’d never had to say anything.

#

“Not bad,” Arthur said. They were sitting by the stream, plates balanced on their knees. John had cooked the fish Arthur had caught with some butter he’d bought from their last trip to Contention, seasoned it with herbs stuffed into its belly.

“C’mon. It’s better than that,” John said. He was maybe a little pleased with himself. All the years growing up as an errand boy around camp before he’d learned how to shoot straight had paid off. 

“Food’s food,” Arthur said, who was one of those rare people who saw no difference between a ruined steak and a perfectly grilled one. He smirked when John pretended to scowl at him. “But since you take cooking so seriously, Marston, I reckon you can cook and I’ll hunt.” 

“I like hunting. You can fish.” 

“Yeah? I’ve seen you shoot rabbits with a varmint rifle. You’re fucking lazy is what you are.” 

“I’ve seen _you_ nearly ride Boadicea off ravines and into rocks. You’re lucky that horse has got more sense than its rider.”

“What’s that got to do with hunting?” Arthur retorted. Behind them, Boadicea let out a loud snort. Arthur turned to look at her with mock disappointment. “Girl, don’t you start.” 

“What kinda name is ‘Boadicea’ anyway?” 

“British Queen who took on the Romans. You knows this. Dutch taught you to read from the same books.” 

“Yeah, I know who she was. Just thinking about the names. Boadicea. Tacitus.” John smirked at Arthur, who rolled his eyes.

“I don’t have to take this from someone who named his goddamned horse ‘Old Boy’. That horse ain’t even old.” 

“It’s just a horse. It don’t need no fancy name.” 

Arthur shook his head sadly. “This is why you ain’t ever gonna be a fine horseman. You don’t love your horses and they knows it.”

“At least I don’t ride ‘em into trees,” John said, and laughed as Arthur shouldered him roughly. “Hey, watch it. You eat enough for three as it is, I ain’t giving you my lunch if you spill yours.” 

Arthur made a show of setting his plate aside. John hastily put his down, scrambling back as Arthur pounced. They ended up rolling into the stream, knees deep in the chill. John laughed and coughed and dragged Arthur down, splashing him as startled fish flickered downstream. Had they played like this when John was younger? He couldn’t quite recall. Not without keeping an eye on Dutch, like dogs waiting to be called to heel. Their time had never been really their own.

Maybe it wasn’t theirs still. Arthur was sober when they strung up their clothes to dry, changed, and finished their cold lunch. John was happy to stay here forever if he could. He wasn’t a man with complicated needs. Arthur, though. Arthur wasn’t complicated either, but Dutch had always loomed large in Arthur’s world and likely always would. John couldn’t even be jealous of that. He knew how it was. 

“You want to go back,” John said, as they washed the plates in the river. It wasn’t the first time he’d said so to Arthur, and each time it was less of a question.

“Someday, yeah,” Arthur said. He leaned over to kiss John on the cheek before he got to his feet. Someday Arthur would nod instead of demurring. He’d saddle up and ask John to follow him, and John could see how that would end. They’d hunted enough bounties by now for the both of them to know where having faith in Dutch would lead them. Someday. 

John caught up with Arthur in the kitchen. As he dried the plates and cutlery Arthur curled against his back, nuzzling his throat. They breathed together for a while, with Arthur’s mouth pressed to John’s pulse. Arthur kissed John on the edge of his mouth until John set down the plates, turning to meet him halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I wrote this on a plane, where I didn't have any access to timelines, and now I'm too lazy to edit to see if XYZ character was in the gang when John was 18, so, in this AU everyone named in the story is in the gang as at this point ^^;;;  
> \--  
> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent.tumblr.com


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